


Vile is a Homonym

by bellygunnr



Series: complacency [4]
Category: Rockman X | Mega Man X, Rockman | Mega Man - All Media Types
Genre: Beating, Bullying, Injury, Mild description though, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 08:20:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14280855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellygunnr/pseuds/bellygunnr
Summary: Vile, an adjective. Vile, a noun. Vile, a menace.





	Vile is a Homonym

And X was down, held under Vile’s crushing weight, unable to move for the great big beast was aggravating wounds previously sustained. Oil seeped from cracks in the skin, dripping onto the floor; his chest was heavy, false lungs crunching with every breath. If his breath was  _vital_  he would have already passed out by now.

But X had a high pain tolerance. Or maybe he just turned his pain receptors off. Or he was too shocked to register what was happening, and felt nothing at all.

“It’s amazing you’ve even survived this long, X,” the purple beast sneers. Red eyes glint menacingly from beneath his mask. “If you were more than a lab robot, maybe you would be able to fight me off. But you’re no more powerful than a simple bug.”

Lab robot. Simple bug. Synonyms? No… X wished he was those, but he was a gun now. Hunter. Maverick Hunter.

Maverick  _Hunter_.

Vile. Purple Beast.

Yet he couldn’t move, nor speak, nor even look and so his processors raced endlessly with no means to act upon their results. His breath rattled through damaged tubing, chest horribly still.

He needed help. Help.

“You’re a liability and a nuisance, X. You’re sure to get others killed. Is it true you can’t even shoot a Mav, point-blank? What are you afraid of?” Vile rattled on, voice a dangerous growl in the pit of his ear, hands gripping mangled metal. “Look at you! Fucking incompetent.”

_Help! Zero!_

There were so many closer contacts, his systems reported. He didn’t even know Zero that well. Yet it was the first name out of his commlinks.

  
Zero was engrossed in a meeting when he received the private Commlink. He felt his eyes widen, ice shoot down his circuits, fingers scrape at the end of the table in surprise. The signal was strong, its source near- too near for comfort. And the voice was X.

 _X_. He remembered him. Wide, naive eyes that glowed emerald and translucent beneath the sun. Rounded blue armour with red accents on his helmet.  _X_. Not the type to call for help.

Unless he needed it.

Vile had wrested X’s face around so that he growled directly into his neck, hot air washing over sensitive skin. The grip on his neck had vanished but crushing weight was applied elsewhere: chest, stomach, groin. X could feel his metal structure pinching his circuits, like pinched nerves. His commlinks wavered, shut down.

One distress call sent.

Vile, blessedly, had ceased talking, but now he seemed content to watch X twist. Not that X could, but his face danced with pain. Eyes burned with it, with helplessness, twin fires threatening to sputter and  _die._

Maybe X wasn’t as tough as he hoped.

Maybe the door crashing was imagined. The weights lifting, freeing him from the wall, was imagined. The crash of voices- tenor and baritone, colliding harshly, was imagined.

Instead of responding to the stimuli, he let his processors cycle. Data banks sweep up the beating and push them way in the back.

Zero blinkered across his vision. Came into sharp focus.

“X, kid, you alright? Did he do all this to you- Christ, what the fuck. Why didn’t you call sooner?”


End file.
